In this episode, we explore different perspectives, considering both current job market trends and organizational needs. We emphasize the advantages of managers being technical, covering scenarios where coding might be beneficial or detrimental. We outline the main areas engineering managers should focus on: execution, team health, and individual development. Towards the end, we touch on the concept of career pendulums between management and coding roles, and share insights from Git Guardian’s approach to balancing manager duties with coding. We conclude by acknowledging the complexities and advocating for context-aware, principle-driven decisions.

In this episode of the Retrospective podcast, Jeremy and Peter kick off the third season by discussing the concept of task relevant maturity in engineering leadership. They explore the common challenges new managers face, such as micromanagement and hands-off leadership. Jeremy introduces the idea from Andy Grove’s book ‘High Output Management,’ emphasizing the need to adjust management styles based on the maturity of a person and the task at hand. They delve into how to assess an individual’s maturity, the benefits of pairing team members, and the importance of maintaining a balance between autonomy and oversight. They also provide actionable insights on how to help team members grow and how to use task relevant maturity to improve overall team performance.

00:00 Introduction to Season Three

00:38 Understanding Task Relevant Maturity

00:56 Challenges Faced by New Managers

03:05 Framework for Assessing Task Relevant Maturity

10:51 High Task Relevant Maturity

26:21 Balancing Critical Projects and Personal Growth

30:22 Conclusion and Resources

Links from the episode:

• High Output Management by Andy Grove - The original source of Task-Relevant Maturity
• The Most Important Management Concept You’re Missing: Task Relevant Maturity
• The Most Important Aspect of Task Relevant Maturity Many Leaders Forget
• The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier - Builds on TRM concepts for engineering leadership

Timeline

00:00 Introduction

00:30 The Importance of Taking Breaks

01:16 Burnout in Middle Management

03:42 Types of Breaks: Macro, Meso, and Micro

05:11 Planning and Executing Effective Vacations

11:14 Incorporating Meso Breaks into Your Day

18:57 The Power of Micro Breaks

27:01 Conclusion and Season Wrap-Up

Links from the episode

• Engineering Managers at risk of burnout in The Pragmatic Engineer and Fortune.
• Study: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance.
• Study: Does the 52-17 rule really hold up?

We dive into the science behind context switching, examine why solutions often fail, and explore a practical framework that turns interruptions from productivity killers into opportunities for systematic improvement.

Key topics we cover:

• The true cost of context switching in engineering teams
• Why common interrupt-handling approaches break down
• How to implement and rotate the firefighter role
• Turning interruptions into systematic improvements
• Measuring success and avoiding common pitfalls

Show Notes:

How engineering teams handle unplanned work - this article captured my thoughts exactly and includes some really good visualisations of the different approaches.

The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress - UC Irvine study

And a FastCompany article about the study.

Advice is offered to engineering managers on how to guide team members aspiring to reach senior levels, emphasizing the importance of demonstrating these traits consistently over time.

Here are some articles and further food for thought:

Senior Engineers Reduce Risk

Levels of Seniority

Why senior engineers get nothing done

An incomplete list of skills senior engineers need, beyond coding

Looking a bit further ahead of the Senior level:

What a Senior Staff Software Engineer Actually Does

VP, Director, what?

00:00 Intro

00:36 Overview

01:40 Senior People Operate on a Different Time Horizon

05:07 The Impact a Senior Engineer Can Have

06:38 Technical Expertise

08:16 Team Impact

11:44 Business Awareness

16:02 How They Behave

18:34 Demonstrating Leadership

20:29 Advice for Engineering Managers

25:42 Summing it up!

26:18 Outro

They discuss how to spot the signs and the reasons behind them, such as changes in company culture or personal struggles.

The conversation also covers how managers can help motivate their team and maintain a positive environment, using strategies like giving feedback and recognising good work.

They also mention the challenges of dealing with quiet quitting, especially when working remotely, and share tips on effectively supporting your team.

00:00 Introduction

00:25 Quiet Quitting

03:07 Situations that can trigger quiet quitting

05:55 It’s not always the company!

06:18 What Motivates People?

07:11 How circumstances can trigger quiet quitting

08:09 Recognising the signs in a remote and in office team members

09:08 Cultural differences

11:44 The consequences of quiet quitting

15:41 How to handle quiet quitting as a manager

20:19 Don’t forget to focus on the whole team

21:11 What are the levers managers have?

25:35 Don’t get sucked in!

27:22 Remove blockers

28:03 Provide Clarity

28:29 One to ones are critical

28:54 Praise and encourage

30:12 Get in touch if you are struggling

30:32 You can’t save everyone!

30:57 Summary

They discuss their experiences with podcasting, the challenges of editing, and the valuable feedback they received.

This episode covers their motivation to provide focused, impactful content for early-stage engineering managers and leaders, and introduces format changes like shorter, more focused episodes, audio-only format, and potential guest interviews around relevant topics.

00:00 Intros

00:29 Reflections on Season One

01:23 What We Learnt and the Feedback We Got

03:57 Plans for Season Two - focusing on Engineering Managers

04:38 Format Changes - 20 - 30 mins, Audio Only

05:50 One Episode Per Topic

07:13 Interviews and Special Episodes

08:31 Wrapping Up

Peter shares his recent experiment with AI-assisted coding, using ChatGPT for a Google Apps Script project, highlighting the benefits and challenges of leveraging AI in software development.

Show notes:

• Jeremy’s article on the Four Must-Have Weekly Meetings for Engineering Managers: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/the-four-must-have-weekly-meetings-for-engineering-managers/
• Jeremy’s earlier article about sharing at 20%: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/the-20-percent-rule/
• Explainer on Task Relevant Maturity: https://getlighthouse.com/blog/management-concept/
• John Cutler on Troubleshooting Status Updates: [https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-252-how-to-troubleshoot-status](https://cutlefish.substack.com/p/tbm-252-how-to-troubleshoot-status?ref=jeremybrown.tech)
• Peter’s updates including AI-assisted coding experiences: https://peterszasz.com/week-24-2024-ai-coding-search-and-creativity/
• BI dashboard and tools article Jeremy mentioned: https://briefer.cloud/blog/posts/self-serve-bi-myth/ - AI Summary “Sales pitches often oversell the idea of "self-serve dashboards," but in reality, it often falls short as non-technical users lack the context to interpret data accurately. The key to successful self-serve BI lies in technical support for business stakeholders using flexible tools that cater to their needs efficiently. Providing technical people with tools like LLMs, Python, and easy data sharing capabilities can bridge the gap between technical complexity and business user needs.”

00:00 Intros

00:37 4 Weekly Meetings for Engineering Managers

01:59 Why Work to a Weekly Cadence?

03:30 Projects and Milestones

09:03 The Weekly Team Kick-off / Planning Meeting

20:06 Daily Sync (Standup) and Team Connection

33:21 One-on-One Meetings

37:16 Monthly Career Focus and Continuous Feedback and Coaching

38:11 One-to-One Frequency

40:15 Task Relevance Maturity Framework

41:35 The Weekly Review Meeting

46:04 Stakeholder Communication and Status Updates

58:02 Retrospectives and Team Health

01:03:23 Using AI for Coding Projects

01:12:14 Wrapping up!

00:00 Hey!

00:25 We Are Slowing Figuring Out The Show Format and Target Audience

02:09 Politics - The Morning After The Night Before - EU and Hungarian Election Results

04:21 Artistic Pairing - The Twin Peaks Soundtrack

12:30 Pair Programming and Collaboration

24:08 What's Old Is New in Tech

30:36 How to maintain career security in the 2024 tech climate?

46:22 A Framework for Innovation

50:37 Implementing Standard Practices

01:08:47 Wrapping Up

• Clayton Christensen’s books on Disruptive Innovation (Jeremy was referring to “The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail”): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19203217-disruptive-innovation
• Lex Fridman and Mark Zuckerberg interview in the Metaverse: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EohIA7QPmmE
• Perplexity, an AI search engine: https://www.perplexity.ai/
• Kagi, the search engine Jeremy uses: https://kagi.com/
• Tom Demarco’s book about slack: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123715.Slack
• 2018 study on slack and innovation: https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/full/10.1287/orsc.2018.1215

Peter’s article about Getting hired as an EM / Searching and applying: https://peterszasz.com/get-hired-as-an-engineering-manager-part-3-searching-and-applying/

• Craft Conference: https://craft-conf.com/
• Book on Platform Strategy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208871782-platform-strategy
• Search Engine podcast episode on the media apocalypse and how to survive it, part 1: https://overcast.fm/+BBVQRBOVak part2: https://overcast.fm/+BBVQTfeXl4
• Example of a hyper-local website: Les Pépites du 19e - https://www.lespepitesdu19e.fr/ and Instagram (@lespepitesdu19e)

00:00 Introduction and Greetings

00:34 What the hell is this show?

02:47 Jeremy's article on "How to Innovate"

07:25 Do you need a healthy Culture to Innovate

09:55 Can big companies innovate?

18:53 Is slack (time) needed to innovate?

28:57 Peter - Getting hired as an EM / Searching and applying

44:55 Get ahead of the crowd strategies for job seekers

47:08 An example of a great cold outreach

48:54 Can networking at conferences help me get a job?

50:54 Experiences at Craft Conf

52:21 Emerging trends from the talks at Craft Conf?

55:17 AI will replace developers!

01:01:19 Supporting Conference Attendance as a leader

01:05:13 The Media Apocalypse and Ethical Consumption

01:07:44 The Role of AI in Content Creation

01:14:16 The Importance of Local News and Media

01:25:35 Reflections and Closing Thoughts​

00:00::00 Awkward intros

00:00:51 Reflecting on Benoit's (CPTO of Lunii) guest appearance last week and the 4 day work week

00:14:28 What correlates with happiness?

00:28:59 Peter's articles on getting hired as an EM - part 1 & 2

00:32:32 Hands on/Hands off Engineering Managers

00:39:02 You need to have multiple CVs!

00:44:07 Drop some nuggets in your CV

00:46:34 Is AI being used to screen me?

00:51:16 Should I use AI to write my CV?

00:53:01 Hot tips for how to use AI

00:58:08 Clickbaity AI

01:01:59 Four Key Questions for Managers That Boost Team Performance

01:09:32 Trust and performance management

01:15:26 Should I share my answers?

01:18:11 Layoffs and low performers

01:22:58 Low performers, the vampire in your team

01:24:25 Retention risk and tracking over time

01:25:40 Give it three months

01:26:23 How to get started

01:28:09 Share your work at 20% done

01:31:55 Being right the first time and the Ikea Effect

01:34:09 Jeremy's pivot

01:36:48 Should our newsletters be perfect?

01:39:49 Homelabbing woes

01:48:44 Looking forward to next week

Show notes

• Our previous show about Lunii’s 4-day workweek experiment: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7199358260410245121/
• Peter’s earlier article about a Hungarian company trying the same: https://peterszasz.com/the-end-of-a-4-day-workweek-experiment/
• Timsons, a family-owned business focusing on employee happiness: https://www.timpson.co.uk/ you can read more about how they are run here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1J7x50pDt5DrcPJ57B7kkM9/6-things-we-learnt-from-the-ceo-of-timpson-s
• The History of Guinness and it’s social impact - https://faithandleadership.com/stephen-mansfield-god-and-guinness
• Peter’s newsletter including the activities / happiness correlation research: https://peterszasz.com/week-21-2024-frustration-and-happiness/
• Not the article Peter mentioned, but a great talk on why we should not send money to Africa: https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/media/series/39/20090409-dead-aid-why-aid-is-not-working-and-how-there-is-a-better-way-for-africa
• Hungarian charity giving targeted help to specific homeless people: https://vanesely.hu/english/
• Peter’s articles about Getting Hired as an EM:
• Women less likely to apply for jobs they don’t feel fully qualified for: https://hbr.org/2014/08/why-women-dont-apply-for-jobs-unless-theyre-100-qualified
• Jeremy: AI prompting article to ask for clarifying questions: https://www.descript.com/blog/article/11-best-chatgpt-prompts
• Growth design website to give tips in design experiences: https://growth.design/
• Jeremy’s recent Performance Questions article: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/four-key-questions-for-managers-that-boost-team-performance/
• …and the original one about debunking performance rating myths: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/17-debunking-performance-rating-myths/
• Nine Lies about Work book: https://goodreads.com/book/show/40086702-nine-lies-about-work
• Jeremy’s article about the Baseline Principles for Teams: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/21-baseline-principles-for-teams/
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21343.The_Five_Dysfunctions_of_a_Team
• The 9-Box Performance Evaluation Model: https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/9-box-grid
• Jeremy’s article about sharing your work early: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/the-20-percent-rule/
• …and his earlier one about the IKEA Effect: https://www.jeremybrown.tech/the-ikea-effect/
• Peter’s article about Homelabbing for Engineering Leaders: https://peterszasz.com/homelabbing-for-engineering-leaders/
• Craft Conference 10: https://craft-conf.com/2024

• Lunii, where our guest Benoit is CPTO: https://lunii.com/
• Lunii’s LinkedIn announcement about going 4-day a week: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7196425731042693121/
• Two other French companies mentioned who do 4-day a week: https://www.ldlc.com/ and https://www.welcometothejungle.com/
• Péter’s article about a 4-day workweek experiment at Magyar Telekom: https://peterszasz.com/the-end-of-a-4-day-workweek-experiment/

00:00:00 show intro 00:02:06 Benoit joins us 00:06:34 4-day workweek and Peter's article 00:09:52 Lunii's journey to the 4-day workweek 00:13:33 Why did it take a year to implement? 00:15:27 Lunii's model - 80 100 100 00:16:11 How have you started to adapt? 00:18:27 Async 00:20:39 Monday is not the same 00:21:36 Time to learn 00:32:12 What about Customer Support? 00:36:29 Early responses 00:43:19 Performance management 00:46:55 Levelling Up Individual productivity 00:51:37 Lunii is hiring 00:54:12 Screentime and kids 00:56:42 AI, Storytelling and translation 01:05:18 The person using AI will take your job 01:06:26 bye!

Show Notes:Apple ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc

Peter's Focus article: https://peterszasz.com/why-cant-i-focus/Linktree: https://linktr.ee/,

OSS alternative: Link Stack https://linkstack.org/

Tom Demarco: Slack https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123715.Slack

Timeboxing hobby article - https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/how-to-set-boundaries-using-time

quotes:

• Time-boxing creates boundaries that force us to think inside the box, that is, at a much more granular level. If we can only dedicate thirty minutes, three times a week to something, we have to figure out what we can get done in that short amount of time. That shift in thinking can make all the difference.
• By only granting ourselves a limited amount of time, we’re primed to make the most of it, and we’re left wanting more. This is a powerful way to stay motivated, and gives us something to look forward to each day.
• Lastly, time-boxing can be very practical for those whose passions often get in the way of their commitments.

Article on questions to ask ceo - https://getlighthouse.com/blog/questions-to-ask-a-ceo-healthy-culture/

CTO survey: https://ss-usa.s3.amazonaws.com/c/311833600/media/1935663a48f6d7f0702329394031256/CTO Craft Compensation Survey Report 2024.pdf